“You Have to Get Naked to Be Clothed in the Lord” by JESUS ANGEL GARCIA
Jesús Ángel García performs “You Have to Get Naked to Be Clothed in the Lord (or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Reverend’s Wife”)” at the Writers With Drinks reading series in San Francisco. Garcia will perform at the Antenna Gallery on Saturday, June 25, at 7 p.m. to celebrate the launch of his transmedia novel, badbadbad, along with Hannah Miet. There will be kiddie pools and booze on hand. García’s work is an innovative and intense experience that combines a traditional print book, a soundtrack of original songs derived from the narrative, and a series of short documentary films based on the novel’s themes: fear, hypocrisy, sexual morality, intimacy in e-culture, and self-destruction v. redemption. Replete with bullhorn and literary-audio-visual barrage, García’s performance at this year’s AWP conference—“You have to Get Naked to be Clothed in the Lord (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Reverend’s Wife)”—prompted author Nik Korpon to declare, “Jesús Ángel García destroys the joint. His performance is what every reading should be.”
About badbadbad: When his wife inexplicably flees from home with their infant son, Jesús Ángel García struggles to redefine himself by being of service on both sides of the Southern cultural divide. By day, he works as the humble, God-fearing webmaster for First Church of the Church Before Church. At night, he plays the part of sexual messiah on fallenangels, an online social network for extreme desires. Blinded by righteousness, obsession and identity confusion, Jesús refuses to change his path even as it leads to the greatest of sins.